Summer Vegetable Dinner

Since retiring from the restaurant, I have cooked a handful of real meals, meals into which I put any effort at all. After coming home from the winery, I am mainly about getting something on the table rather than being creative. I need a reason to cook now, it seems. And that reason would be our good friends Pat and Mary Jo just two houses down.

We invited them over for dinner and since they are vegetarians, I cooked vegetarian. Because my diet is mainly vegetarian, this is a non-issue and truth be told, I've never needed meat to make my life complete. Well, there is pork belly. If I have any weakness at all, it would be for pork belly.

This meal was guided by the time of the year and what was in season, the very same ethos that drove the menus at OBW. For a first course, seeing some beautiful Kuta squash in the market made me think back to a dish I did for a vegetarian summer squash-themed dinner more than a decade ago. I made a classic vichyssoise substituting squash for potatoes and calling it rather tongue-in-cheek squashyssoise.

Only one problem. I have real problems with lactose and a bowl of the original chilled soup would certainly be painful. No worries: coconut milk to the rescue for that same unctuousness that heavy cream provides. The soup involved sweating squash and leek with a bouquet of Thai basil from the garden (because is not the combination of coconut milk and Thai basil one of the most glorious flavor combinations ever?) and then into the blender.

After the soup chilled overnight, I pulled it out of the fridge 90 minutes before I wanted to serve it to let it warm to the point where the fat in the coconut milk would be liquid, cooler than room temperature. Only one problem: the soup was so desperately flat that I thought of pitching it out rather than serving it.

I don't know if I am out of practice or if my chef mind failed me, but it actually took me what seemed like several minutes to figure out how to rescue the soup. A sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of agave syrup took the soup to a new plane: one of the three best soups I have ever made and I have made thousands. The garnish is a simple relish of raw corn, raw tomato, Thai basil, salt, and agave nectar.

Lacto-Friendly Squashyssoise

Squash cakes. A year ago, I would have screamed "f*cking squash cakes!" at the thought of making another after a decade and a half of having them on summer menus and the incessant requests from customers as soon as spring arrived, "When are you going to put squash cakes back on the menu?" Squash cakes sound pretty bland, boring, and healthy, but these are none of those things and once someone tries them, she is pretty well hooked for life.

A quick fresh salad of black-eyed peas and vegetables dressed in red wine vinegar and olive oil sits under the cake and a quick pickle of cucumber brings a little more acid to the party to complement the incredibly rich squash.

Squash Cake, Black-Eyed Pea Salad, Quick Pickled Cukes

And for dessert, I had to do a sorbet. Why? My wife made me schlep my huge commercial sorbet machine 3500 miles across this country and it had been sitting in the garage, unpacked and unloved. I made a simple syrup of Pinot Noir with a hint of cinnamon and blended it with watermelon to yield a fun summer sorbet.

Watermelon-Pinot Noir Sorbet

Pat and Mary Jo, thanks for all you do for us. We'll do it again. When I get the itch to cook again.

Moqueca Baiana

Moqueca Baiana

We've been plagued with cancellations at the restaurant and last night was no exception. Moreover, it was St. Patrick's Day, a historically robust night for bars and an extremely slow one for restaurants, I decided to take the night off. Ann wanted something nice for dinner last night and I struggled with that. I hadn't planned to make dinner and retty much everything we have on the menu, I don't want to eat because I've seen too much of it. Moreover, I was really tired and didn't want to put a lot of effort into dinner. Finally, it dawned on me that I could put together a shellfish moqueca in no time at all.

At work, I diced some red, yellow, and orange peppers along with a bit of onion, sliced some green onions and fresh tomatoes, minced a bit of garlic, and chopped a bit of cilantro, about three cups in total for three portions.

This dish couldn't be any simpler to make. I heated a soup pan on high flame and sautéed the vegetable sofrito in palm oil, then added a can of coconut milk, juice of a key lime, and a bit of water. Next, in went the clams, followed a minute later by the mussels, and then all at once the scallops, shrimp, and cubes of rockfish. I stirred this and let everything cook another two minutes, then turned it off for two minutes for everything to carry over to doneness. And done.

Kaffir Lime

Sunday after our visit with Donald and Terry at Boxwood Winery, Amanda and Dimitri came back to our house for dinner. Donald and Terry went straight back home after the winery because they have to get up so darned early in the morning to commute. That sucks!

After the long thirsty ride home from the winery, we cracked a bottle of Palacio de Feffinañes Albariño. The lemony mineral crispness was very refreshing after drinking the Boxwood Topiary Cabernet Franc blend at the winery. I got some salume out of the fridge to go with the bottle of 2007 Alpha Estate Red that Dimitri brought with him. I have tasted Alpha wines a few times in the last couple of years and they are always very good. This particular blend of Syrah, Xinomavro, and Merlot from the far north of Greece worked really well with the sausages from Olli Salumeria just west of Richmond. We had a Norcino and a spicy Calabrese made with Sangiovese. Delicious.

Greek Wine and Virginia Salume, a Great Combo!

It is so rare that I plan a meal ahead on a Sunday, my day off from the restaurant. Usually, I am very content to go with the flow and create something out of whatever we have on hand. But not this weekend. We just got a new batch of kaffir lime leaves in and they have inspired me to create a couple of new dishes that I wanted to do at home. Ann kept asking all day what was for dinner and I kept blowing her off, wanting to surprise her.

I came up with this mussel dish for a tasting this week and I liked it so much that I wanted to reprise it. Start by sautéing minced garlic in olive oil with a few kaffir lime leaves. Then add the mussels and a shot of dry white wine (I used Sancerre), cover the pan, and let the mussels steam. When the mussels are open, remove them to a bowl, and return the pan with the cooking liquid to the heat. Add a good splash of coconut milk to the pan along with a shot of fish sauce. Let reduce by half. Meanwhile, add fresh kaffir lime leaves, cilantro leaves, and Thai basil leaves to the mussels. Once the broth is reduced, off heat, stir in a couple tablespoons of tobiko which will turn the broth a glorious orange color. Pour over the mussels and toss well.

Mussels with Coconut Milk, Thai Basil, Cilantro, and Tobiko

Yum! They were Delicious!

For the main course, I wanted to do pork and thought that Syrah might just be a great pairing so Dimitri brought along a bottle of 2006 Grand Rêve Syrah from Red Mountain in Washington State, a dense berry fruit-driven wine. I kicked in a bottle of Barrel 27 Syrah from Paso Robles. Both had enough oomph to stand up to dinner. I love Syrah and was excited to taste the Grand Rêve for the first time. This is not a wine in my usual price category. I have tasted some neighboring wines and like most of the other wines hailing from Red Mountain, Washington's smallest AVA, it is a super effort!

Dueling Syrahs, not a Bad Choice for Pork

For dinner, I reprised a great staff meal from last week, grilled pork burger bánh mì. I originally made this as a meatball for a cocktail party that we catered a couple weeks back. The pork is flavored with a slurry of kaffir lime, cilantro, Thai basil, ginger, garlic, palm sugar, black pepper, and fish sauce. The slurry is so green that it tints the pork! I served them on split and grilled demi-baguettes drizzled with a sweet and spicy rice vinegar, sugar, fish sauce, and chile paste sauce. Garnishes are cole slaw (rice vinegar and sugar dressing), cucumber slices, and fresh cilantro. The flavor and aroma of these burgers is just ridiculous!

Pork Burger Bánh Mì

Yet another great weekend! Thanks to Dimitri for bringing along such incredible wine!